The Adyghe alphabet has 66 letters: the Russian Cyrillic alphabet plus the palochka (Ӏ) and 32 letters written with two or three characters, such as Шъ, Чъ and Шъу, which count as letters of their own. The Cyrillic alphabet dates from 1937; the count of 66 was fixed in law in 1989.
Adyghe, or West Circassian, is spoken in Adygea and also widely by Circassians in Turkey. Here is its whole alphabet, each letter with a native speaker’s recording from the Circassian App’s alphabet course, its sound in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) and, where there is a checked one, a word that uses it.
All 66 letters
Every sound is a native speaker’s recording from the Circassian App; Ъ and Ь have no sound of their own. IPA: Wikipedia’s Adyghe alphabet table (after Arkadiev and Lander, Oxford, 2020). Example words are words the app teaches, each confirmed by the app’s Adyghe dictionary, the app’s audio course (whose scripts a native speaker reviewed) or the Adyghe Wikipedia; letters with no such word have none.
Listening quiz: which letter is it?
This is one of the app’s own alphabet questions: listen, then pick the letter. Ten rounds, and letters that look alike come up together.
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In the app’s alphabet course this question comes with three others (see a letter and pick its sound, match a letter to its Latin spelling, hear a sound and pick from six letters), and spaced repetition brings letters back for review.
Print the Adyghe alphabet
A one-page chart of the whole alphabet, made for printing.
- All 66 letters in order, capital and small
- A checked example word with a picture for 56 of them
- A QR code that opens this page, so anyone can hear the letters
- A4, free to print for a classroom, a fridge or a first lesson
The letters Russian doesn’t have
Like many Cyrillic alphabets made in the Soviet Union, it keeps to the letters of Russian typewriters and writes the sounds Russian lacks with letter combinations; the palochka is the one addition. A few marks do most of the work:
| Ӏ on its own | Ӏ [ʔ] A glottal stop [ʔ]: a catch in the throat, like the tt in American “button”. |
|---|---|
| A letter + Ӏ | КӀ [t͡ʃʼ]КӀу [kʷʼ]ЛӀ [ɬʼ]ПӀ [pʼ]ПӀу [pʷʼ]ТӀ [tʼ]ТӀу [tʷʼ]ЦӀ [t͡sʼ]ЧӀ [t͡ʂʼ]ШӀ [ʂʼ]ШӀу [ʂʷʼ] Ejectives: said with the throat closed and released with a small pop. |
| A letter + у | Гу [ɡʷ]Гъу [ʁʷ]Дзу [d͡ʐʷ]Жъу [ʐʷ]Ку [kʷ]Къу [qʷ]КӀу [kʷʼ]ПӀу [pʷʼ]ТӀу [tʷʼ]Хъу [χʷ]Цу [t͡ʂʷ]Шъу [ʂʷ]ШӀу [ʂʷʼ]Ӏу [ʔʷ] Said with rounded lips, as if a w followed (the ʷ in the IPA). |
| A letter + ъ | Гъ [ʁ]Жъ [ʐ]Къ [q]Лъ [ɬ]Хъ [χ]Чъ [t͡ʂ]Шъ [ʂ] Гъ, Къ and Хъ are made at the uvula; Жъ, Шъ and Чъ are said with the tongue tip curled back; Лъ [ɬ] is a voiceless l, like the Welsh ll. |
| A letter + ь | Жь [ʑ]Хь [ħ] Жь [ʑ] is a soft ж; Хь [ħ] is a strong, breathy h from deep in the throat. |
| Two letters, one sound | Дж [d͡ʒ]Дз [d͡z] Дж [d͡ʒ] is the j in “jam”; Дз [d͡z] is dz. |
| Э and А | А [aː]Э [a] Э is a short [a] and А a long [aː]. Adyghe writes three vowels, Ы [ə], Э and А; Я, И, О, У and Е stand for a vowel together with a й [j] or у [w] sound. |
Reading tips: how Adyghe spelling works
- У at the start of a word is read уы [wə], but the ы is not written, and ы is not written after у, й or a rounded letter either: унэ “house”, not уынэ.
- At the start of a word, О is read уэ [wɐ], Е is read йэ [jɐ] and И is read йы [jə]: осы “snow”, еджапӀэ “school”, илъэс “year”.
- When a rounded letter comes before э, it is written with о instead of уэ: гъогу “road”, not гъуэгу.
The palochka: Ӏ, the “little stick”
The palochka (Russian палочка, “little stick”) came into Cyrillic in the late 1930s, at first as the digit 1. In Adyghe it is a letter of its own, the glottal stop [ʔ], and it is part of 12 more letters: КӀ, КӀу, ЛӀ, ПӀ, ПӀу, ТӀ, ТӀу, ЦӀ, ЧӀ, ШӀ, ШӀу, Ӏу.
Most keyboards have no palochka, so people often type the digit 1 or a capital I instead; the Circassian App’s lessons type I too. In Unicode it is U+04C0 (a rarer small form is U+04CF). Copy the real one here:
Kabardian and Adyghe letters compared
The Kabardian and Adyghe alphabets share 54 letters. Kabardian has 12 that Adyghe does not:
Дзу [d͡ʐʷ]Жъ [ʐ]Жъу [ʐʷ]ПӀу [pʷʼ]ТӀу [tʷʼ]Цу [t͡ʂʷ]Чъ [t͡ʂ]ЧӀ [t͡ʂʼ]Шъ [ʂ]Шъу [ʂʷ]ШӀ [ʂʼ]ШӀу [ʂʷʼ]Adyghe has 5 that Kabardian does not:
Кхъ [q͡χ]Кхъу [q͡χʷ]ФӀ [fʼ]Ху [xʷ]ЩӀ [ɕʼ]In Kabardian Э comes second, right after А; in Adyghe it comes near the end, after Ь, as in Russian.
See the Kabardian alphabet and how the two languages differ.
A short history of Adyghe writing
- 1853Umar Bersey publishes the first “Primer of the Circassian Language”, in Arabic script, in Tiflis on 14 March; the date is now celebrated as the Day of the Adyghe Language and Writing.
- 1918–1927An Arabic-script alphabet is official.
- 1927–1938A Latin alphabet, finished in 1926, replaces it.
- 1937N. F. Yakovlev and D. A. Ashkhamaf make the Cyrillic alphabet still in use; it is approved soon after.
- 1989After a debate in the local press, the list of 66 letters is fixed in law.
- 2012In Turkey, the Circassian Language Association (Adıge Dil Derneği, ABX) calls for a common Latin alphabet for all Circassians.
Learn the alphabet in the app
The Circassian App’s Adyghe alphabet course has 11 short lessons and teaches exactly these 66 letters, playing each one’s recording as you learn it. After the alphabet come the language lessons, where this page’s example words are from.
Questions
How many letters are in the Adyghe alphabet?
66. Letters written with two or three characters, like Шъ or Шъу, count as one letter each; the list of 66 was fixed in law in 1989.
What is the Adyghe alphabet in order?
А, Б, В, Г, Гу, Гъ, Гъу, Д, Дж, Дз, Дзу, Е, Ё, Ж, Жъ, Жъу, Жь, З, И, Й, К, Ку, Къ, Къу, КӀ, КӀу, Л, Лъ, ЛӀ, М, Н, О, П, ПӀ, ПӀу, Р, С, Т, ТӀ, ТӀу, У, Ф, Х, Хъ, Хъу, Хь, Ц, Цу, ЦӀ, Ч, Чъ, ЧӀ, Ш, Шъ, Шъу, ШӀ, ШӀу, Щ, Ъ, Ы, Ь, Э, Ю, Я, Ӏ, Ӏу.
What is the Ӏ letter in Adyghe?
The palochka, a Cyrillic letter that looks like a capital I or the digit 1. On its own it is a glottal stop [ʔ]; after a consonant (КӀ, ПӀ, ТӀ, ЦӀ, ЧӀ, ШӀ…) it marks an ejective. People often type 1 or I for it.
Is Adyghe written in Cyrillic or Latin?
In Cyrillic, since the alphabet of 1937. From 1927 to 1938 it used a Latin alphabet and before that an Arabic-script one. In Turkey, the Circassian Language Association (ABX) called in 2012 for a common Latin alphabet.
How is it different from the Kabardian alphabet?
Adyghe has 66 letters and Kabardian 59; they share 54. Only Adyghe has 12 letters, such as Шъ, Чъ and Жъ; only Kabardian has ФӀ, ЩӀ, Кхъ, Кхъу and Ху.
Can I print the Adyghe alphabet?
Yes. The free chart on this page (PDF, A4) has all 66 letters, example words and a QR code that opens this page with the recordings.
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Sources
- Circassian App: the Adyghe alphabet course (66 letters in 11 lessons; every letter recorded by a native speaker), lessons and audio course, October 2026.
- The app’s audio course (Beginner), scripts reviewed by a native speaker (example words: бзыу, чъыгы, гъатхэ, гъубдж, дахэ, еджапӀэ, жьыбгъэ, зы, ин, щай, бэрэскэшху, мэшӀоку, къалэ, къуае, лы, лъакъо, плӀы, нэ, осы, псы, лъапӀэ, мыр, сабый, тхылъ, тӀу, унэ, фыжьы, пхъу, хьэ, цуакъэ, цӀыкӀу, чэтыу, чъыӀэ, шы, щы, блы, Ӏэ).
- The app’s Adyghe dictionary (dovlet.info, 3,499 entries; example words: атакъэ, бзыу, чъыгы, гу, гъубдж, баджэ, бжыхьэ, жъуагъо, жьыбгъэ, щай, бэрэскэшху, къуае, кӀымаф, тхьакӀум, лы, лъакъо, мэлы, нэ, осы, псы, сабый, унэ, фыжьы, хы, псыхъо, пхъу, хьэ, цы, цуакъэ, чэтыу, чъыӀэ, чӀыгу, шы, шъоу, машӀо, шӀуцӀэ, пэ, Ӏэ, Ӏудан).
- Adyghe Wikipedia, month articles (example words: бэдзэогъу, жъоныгъуакӀ).
- Wikipedia (Russian): Адыгейская письменность, revision 154130663: the modern alphabet and its order (from the Republic of Adygea’s table), 1937, 1989.
- Wikipedia (English): Template:AdygheAlphabet, revision 1368791641: the alphabet table with IPA (Arkadiev and Lander, The Oxford Handbook of the Languages of the Caucasus, 2020).
- Wikipedia (English): Adyghe alphabet, revision 1368790706: the history, the reading rules and their examples.
- Wikipedia (English): Palochka, revision 1376305552.
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